It is not about being an academic, but about making academic arguments which Hume and Mill obviously made.

I have no clue what meaning is being attached to ‘academic’ here. But in a sense it doesn’t matter, since it certainly isn’t what I meant, wsince I was taking it as a professional designation: i.e., the use of ‘academic’ that would apply to a situation in which people researching in universities insofar are focusing primarily on writing the sorts of things that interest people researching in universities. (Einstein may have been a clerk, but his argument was very much directed to researchers of his profession, and is styled accordingly. Contrariwse, when Einstein was later an academic, in addition to his academic works he also occasionally wrote popular ones, which were not directed professionally at researchers.) There’s a place for that, plenty of places, actually; but there’s more to philosophy than that.

Clark,

I don’t think you moved the discussion anywhere; here’s as good a place to have a discussion about it as any.

One of the purposes of the list (but only one) was to be a little devious and subversive. There are cases here that are provably philosophical that aren’t usually considered such (Austen’s a great point; Ryle, MacIntyre, and a whole stream of others have shown that while Austen’s moral philosophy isn’t systematic — obviously she’s primarily focusing on writing the novel rather than discussing, say, constancy — it is surprisingly substantive). And there are cases that are a bit more borderline, but that I think, and obviously think that I have good reason to think, are nonetheless natural ‘ins’ to all sorts of interesting philosophical issues, if you got someone to be interested in the work itself. In a sense, part of the point of the list is to say that there are more things in philosophy than most people dream. So the diversity is very, very deliberate.

I agree that ideally the Renaissance would be better represented, much as Chris H. is right that it would be nice to have more political philosophy. Perhaps when I’m older and have read a larger selection of the books whose making has no end. I also agree that Nagel’s “What is it Like to be a Bat?” is a very good candidate — actually, I think many of Nagel’s works would be good examples. While I think solid candidates for a list of this very odd sort form a very small percentage of the total output, I do think it would be entirely possible to build a list that served the same function, entirely out of papers written by 20th century people usually thought of as analytic philosophers. Bouwsma and Anscombe ended up on the list, but there are plenty of others that could have been chosen. Part of the point of the list is that philosophy is much vaster and wider and varied and, indeed, interesting, than you’d usually get from a more standard recommendation on “philosophical works to read.” So I’m all for any suggested candidates that would be likely to show to a lot of people that the universe of philosophy is not small and dry and narrow.

BTW, I’ve added a few thoughts at the end of the original post.

One thing I did like about your list is how it covered many eras. Although the Renaissance could use a bit more I suppose – but then Renaissance philosophy is always problematic. There’s always that partial break away from Scholastic philosophy often towards more Platonic approaches (either pagan or more Christianized) but they never really seemed to do it too rigorously. One could, I suppose, see the Rationalists like Descartes doing the Renaissance right.

I still think that 20th century analytic philosophy with the typical situation of short papers is often very readable. Something like Thomas Nagel’s “What is it Like to be a Bat?” is very approachable, if perhaps somewhat challenging. (But arguably no more challenging than some of the works you have up there – a little commentary by a teacher would get most students over the hurdle)

Hume and Mill did not have academic position because they refused to sign allegiances to the church of England.

Was Einstein writing for the simple folk because he was a clerk?

Maybe I am too much of an analytical snob. I am okay with that.

As to the last paragraph, that is, of course, one of the attitudes this list was meant to oppose. Indeed, I’m not sure it’s even a rationally sustainable position: historically, whether major philosophical work was academic in tone and style and purpose has depended not on anything to do with the philosophical work itself but on the quality of the university infrastructure; thus philosophy becomes most wholly academic in the periods in history that see the university at its most dynamic and expansive, most notably the high Middle Ages and the period (in which arguably we still find ourselves) after the Prussian reforms. Outside those periods philosophy tends, with some small islands of exceptions, to have a popular rather than an academic orientation. So, for instance, there are periods where a great deal of significant philosophical work is done by journalists, or civil servants, or librarians, or the like, writing for the public, rather than by academics writing for academics. If we actually took your statement seriously, we’d have to reject Descartes, Hume, Mill, and others as not doing work of philosophical interest.

This list strikes me as one that was made in the 1950′s and it almost completely ignores political philosophy, with the above Kant peace and Mill being the exception.

“an interest in philosophy among those who might be turned off by anything too academic.” If you have an interest in philosophy but are turned off by anything too academic, you actually do not really have an interest in philosophy.

Bill,

All of the works have a pretty obvious philosophy angle, I think, although in some cases it is less explicit than others. Mansfield Park is a very, very easy one; it’s a narrative exploration of the virtue of constancy, and touches virtually all the themes of early modern virtue ethics in one form or another. Confederacy of Dunces parodies themes from the Consolation of Philosophy; parodies are always tricky but, as with Candide, they can be thought-provoking even thought (as with Candide!) they distort in order to be funny.

I’ve read very little Schopenhauer, and one of the constraints on the list was that I had to have read it in order to put it on (a very constraining constrain); so that’s why he’s not there. Kierkegaard, unfortunately, was jut an oversight. He would be a great addition to the list.

I would add:

Kierkegaard’s Postscript

Varieties of Religious Experience, James

Philosophy of As If, H. Vaihinger

Here are a few of contemporary treasures in philosophy of science I would add:

Mindsight, Colin McGinn

The Dappled World : A Study of the Boundaries of Science Nancy Cartwright (Not the same one as the voice of Bart Simpson)

The Empirical Stance, Bas C. van Fraassen

Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett

Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality, William Wimsatt

I agree that most Sartre is rather tedious, but give No Exit a try – it’s a short play that’s actually pretty funny.

Johnson’s Rasselas is one of my favorite books. Also a short and easy read. Sort of a Candide without the humor, or with a more subtle humor.

In Praise of Folly is a great satire. Historia Calamitatum shows one of the most egotistical minds of all time, who still manages to remain a sympathetic figure. I always wanted to read Sic et Non, but it’s so long.

Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy is one of those prison classics. Boethius is also important in medieval music theory. His texts on music theory formed the basis of the study of that part of the quadrivium for centuries. Abelard, incidentally, was also a musician, the author of, among other things, the hymn, O quanta qualia.